Beak at the conference “Resources for Future Generations” (RFG 2018) in VancouverPresentation of geological 3D model and mineral prediction for Erzgebirge

20th June 2018, Vancouver (Canada)

At the "Resources for Future Generations" conference in Vancouver from 16th until 21st June 2018, Beak Consultants GmbH will present new results from exploration for high-tech metals in the Erzgebirge (East Germany) and methods of 3D mineral predictive mapping through two oral presentations.

The inaugural conference is organized by the International Union of Geological Sciences (IUGS), the Canadian Federation of Earth Sciences (CFES), the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM), the Geological Association of Canada (GAC) and the Mineralogical Association of Canada (MAC). Around 5000 participants from the raw materials sector and scientific organizations are expected to attend the Vancouver Convention Centre. The talks will be conducted on 20th June at 8:45 and 9:15 am in room 115 (Session MIN50: Mineral Prospectivity Modeling and Assessment of Undiscovered Mineral Resources III).

The first talk "How to identify new resource potentials for classical and critical metals in a traditional mining district – Example Erzgebirge (Germany)" will present results from geochemical investigations of 50 metals in more than 6000 stream sediment samples and more than 1000 hard rock samples from the Erzgebirge (collected and analyzed as part of the WISTAMERZ project). As a result, distribution maps for high tech metals like Indium and Germanium can be presented for the first time. These maps are important landmarks for the further exploration of these rare commodities. Moreover, for traditionally mined metals like tin (which was mined in the Erzgebirge for several centuries), the area-wide investigation yielded new indications for prospective areas.

Figure: Extract from 3D prediction model for tin-skar-deposits in the Erzgebirge region, which was created with advangeo® 3D Prediction Software

The second talk "A 3D subsurface model of the Erzgebirge for 3D mineral potential mapping of Sn-W deposits with Artificial Neural Networks" will focus on the first results of 3D mineral prediction mapping with the newly developed advangeo® 3D Prediction Software. The predictions are based on a geological 3D model of the Erzgebirge/Vogtland area (approx. 9600 km2) extending to a depth of 3000 m BSL The model includes important intrusive bodies, faults, more than 100 known deposits and further geologic bodies. A subarea of 1600 km2 was pre-processed for the 3D prediction by dividing the area into 12.8 million volume elements (voxels), which were attributed with the available geological, geophysical and geochemical data. The advangeo® 3D Prediction Software uses artificial neuronal networks to understand the relationship between multiple input data and the spatial distribution of the known deposits. The discovered multi-variate, non-linear correlations are used to predict unknown, concealed deposits.

The above-mentioned results were obtained in several R&D projects, partially funded by the ZIM program of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi) (3D advangeo: KF3236902KM3) and the FONA program of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (GEM: 033R134C, WISTAMERZ: 033R133A).